Counterproductive Legislation

Dec 1997

All the world’s countries suffer to some degree from stunted economic growth due to certain well intentioned, yet counterproductive legislation.  Did you ever wonder why, if minimum wage laws worked as intended, someone hasn’t informed the starving nations of the world that they can reduce poverty with the stroke of a legislative pen ?  Or why, if any form of government-decreed standard of living actually created that standard of living, countries like Bangladesh don’t pump out more noble legislation ?  The same can be said of protectionism or, more broadly, government interference in economies.  The simple reality is that standards of living are produced by people like you and me, not by government fiat, and the freer people are to produce, the more they produce.